Ceiling tiles were down in the lobby and water was being vacuumed from the terrazzo tile floor in the hallways going toward the auditorium in the Bethlehem Township, Pa., school, Superintendent Joseph Roy said this morning after inspecting the damage. But it didn't get on the gym floor, didn't affect any carpeted floors and did not damage any computers, he said.

"We were pretty lucky," Roy said.

Classes will resume Thursday as normal, Roy said this afternoon. There were no cost estimates immediately available for the clean up, he said, but it is not expected to be significant as a district worker and contractor made the repairs and cleaned up the water within two hours.

If the fire-suppression system wasn't shut off in that part of the building after the pipe failed, students would be in school this morning, he said. But because there are several classrooms there with no fire-suppression system in place, students were told not to report today, he said. There had been a two-hour delay because of the cold weather. Teachers were to report and planned to work in another part of the building, Roy said.

Since the entire school district wasn't shut, athletic events were slated to continue as scheduled after school, he said.

The three overnight custodians were in other parts of the building when the pipe burst, Roy said. The township fire companies were automatically advised of the failure, but it took 20 to 25 minutes to get the main water valve shut off, so "a lot of water came down," he said. The pipe likely froze because it is in a ceiling near an exterior wall, he said.

Northampton County reported the break about 4:45 this morning, a shift supervisor said at the emergency dispatch center.

Temperatures were in the low single digits this morning and chill factors were again below zero.

The school district has already used up its four scheduled snow days, but since it was an incident at a single school, the district will apply to the Pennsylvania Department of Education for a waiver of the 180-day rule and the school day won't need to be made up, Roy said.

As for what happens if there are any more districtwide cancellations, Roy said the first day taken back would be the scheduled Thursday off before Easter. However, days could just be tacked onto the end of the school year, he added.